Ragnarok Online the Book
by CentarPede1
Summary: In the Rune-Midgarts Kingdom, located somewhere in the Ragnarok world, a young boy and girl set out on an adventure.
1. Introduction

The city was quiet at night. A few lights glowed from the windows of some houses, but the majority of the houses were dim. The moon gave off a faint glow, making way for the few unfortunate people who forgotten their lanterns at home.

A tired-looking man walked down the street. He made a turn into one of the gates of a house and walks through it. The slightly rusty gate creaks as the man opens and closes it. The man then pulled out a key from his pocket and unlocked the front door.

"I'm home," the man said, accompanied by the sound of the door opening and closing.

"Dad!" a little boy shouted as he ran from the back room and leaped into his father's arms.

"Ooh, you're getting bigger." The man caught the little boy in his hands and lifted him up. Though most would have found it difficult to lift a running ten-year old boy up without a little bit of struggling, the man lifted his son up as if the boy weighed no more than a feather. This goes without saying though, considering that the man's build was much more muscular than the average person.

The young boy's eyes glowed in excitement as he asked his next question. "Dad, how was work with the kingdom's Knights?"

The man grinned proudly, thinking back on his own achievements, as he placed his son back on the ground. "Well, let's just say your father did well out there. Even the oversized Male Thief Bugs are no problem for him now!" The man flexed his muscles to show off. "They don't call me the Mightiest One on the Frontiers for nothing!"

"Wow!"

"That pride will get you one day," a woman's voice called out. The boy's mother walked out wearing an apron and holding a ladle. "Welcome home, dear."

"I'm home," the man replied with a warm smile. He walked to his wife and embraced her. "I missed you."

"Don't be silly, we saw each other a week ago," she said jokingly, wrapping her arms around him as well. Then, in a whisper, "I missed you too."

"Eww, gross!" the boy yelled as he saw his parents' intimacy. The two smiled wryly as they walked to the dining room where a warm meal was waiting for him. The wife, who had already eaten, listened with a smile as the man retold the stories of his past week on patrol duty.

When he finished his meal, in accordance to his wife's pestering, the man went to the town's public baths. And after washing himself from the week's toll and sweat, he headed back to his house. His son and wife had fallen asleep a long time ago, and the house was quiet.

Finding himself not too tired, the man sat back down at the dining room table. As his mind began to wander off, his earlier relaxed smile was nowhere to be found, slowly replaced with a grim expression. He recalled the past week of his patrol, including the parts he left untold to his family.

His Knight division was patrolling the city culvert. For as long as anyone could remember, there had always been some monsters living there. However, because the monsters were fairly weak, the Knights dispatched them easily. As long as they made periodical patrols through the area and thinned out their numbers, the monsters posed no threat to the capital city.

But recently, the monsters appeared more frequently in number. Though weak individually, when the monsters grouped up in a swarm, even the trained Knights would have difficulty dealing with the pests. And during the rare cases when the number of monsters doubled the number of knights, the knights would easily fall prey to the monsters.

Though the Knight commanders have tried to recruit adventurers to help through the guild, the monsters' appearance was too unappealing for many to accept the quest. For reference, the monsters looked like an oversized roach, as large as an adult human's torso.

Without some kind of resolution, it was only a matter of time before the Knights would be overwhelmed. Unlike the monsters whose numbers never seemed to decrease, the number of Knights were finite. But because he was a Knight, the man couldn't abandon the people. In fact, he was planning to leave the next morning and head back to the capital. The reason behind his visit today was so that he could inform his family that he would be away for a while, possibly longer than before.

The man sighed and stood up, stretching. Then, he walked into the room of his son and sat down next to the sleeping boy. He pat the boy's sleeping head, to which the boy unconsciously smiled. The man's tired face lightened up a bit after seeing that.

The man stood up and left the room to where his bag sat at the dining room. He grabbed something wrapped in a cloth and returned to the sleeping boy. Quietly, he laid the item by the boy's sleeping body.

"Happy early birthday," the man whispered.

He yawned, his lack of rest finally catching up to him, and he retired to his own room where his wife was already asleep.

The next morning, the man stood in the front porch in his full armor and uniform. His wife stood at the front door holding the half-asleep boy in her arms. They watched the man get on his mount, a giant orange land-bird called Peco Peco, and head out the gate. The man turned to his family and waved one last time. The boy sluggishly waved back, his eyelids half-open. The woman watched, smiling sadly, watching her husband leave.

For some reason, her she wanted to call out to him. She felt an ominous air around him. Maybe she should get him to stay one more day. Or even better, a week. There was no evidence. However, she feared that something very bad was about to happen. But when she snapped back to reality, the man was already far off in the distance.

Hoping that nothing would happen, she glanced one last time at her husband's distant figure before walking back in the house with her son.


	2. Chapter 1

In the small town of Izlude, located in the Rune-Midgarts Kingdom, there stands a large building. Its formal name is the Royal Criatura Academy, but most people just call it the Academy. This is the beginning place of all adventurers. Here, you learn all the basics of combat and survival. It can even be said that without the Academy, there would be no adventurers.

Room and boarding were free. In return, adventurers were expected to offer their services to the Kingdom in some way. Usually, that meant that they would hunt monsters that were threatening the Kingdom's towns and cities. And any loot they found from the monsters were theirs to keep or sell. It was a great deal benefiting the adventurers.

However, that doesn't mean that adventurers had it easy. Their income could be called anything but stable. Even if they encountered a lot of easy prey that day, the prey may drop no valuable loot. In that case, they would make next to nothing on that day. Not to mention other factors, such as rain, that could make them unable to hunt, effectively taking a whole day's worth of income away.

On top of that, there was the danger. An adventurer's daily living depended on combat and taking the lives of monsters. Naturally, no monster would let itself be killed without a problem. Monsters fought back when attacked. There were even some that attacked humans on sight. It was truly a lifestyle where one had to put his or her life on the line.

For this reason, not everyone desired to be an adventurer. Some made a living though cooking, or smithing, or even teaching. After all, that's all adventuring came down to— a way to make money. And like any other jobs out there, some were naturally more cut out for this than others.

The vice versa is equally true. Some people just aren't cut out for this kind of job.

It must have been a bizarre sight. Two young teenagers being chased down a hillside by a pink butterfly-looking monster screaming for their lives. By the looks of their clothing, one was an Acolyte while the other was a Novice. If I was a spectator, I would be thinking what those two were doing that made the monster chase after them. Sadly, I was not a bystander, but a reluctant participant of this 'bizarre sight'.

"Run for your life!" the girl shouted at me.

"I'm already running!" I shouted in response.

"Run faster!"

"I am!"

"Why would you go and provoke a Creamy?!" the girl yelled at me.

"It was an accident!"

Creamys were unaggressive by nature. It would never attack someone unless it was attacked first. Then why was this normally passive monster chasing us?

Well, like the girl said, it was my fault. My actual target was a Pupa. It was a cocoon monster incapable of moving. It was an easy target, and because of that, I let my guard down. Naturally, something hatches from cocoons, and I didn't realize that the Pupa was hatching and swung my dagger at the emerging Creamy.

Which is how we got into this situation.

Suddenly, there was a squeal from behind us. When I stopped to turn around, I found the butterfly dead with an arrow through it.

"Are you two okay?" a woman ran to us followed by a brown falcon flying not too far behind her. Seeing how the woman was holding a bow, she must have been the one who shot the Creamy.

"Y-Yes," the girl responded, out of breath. "Thank you."

"Thank you," I said as well.

Still catching my breath, I looked over to the dead insect. Monsters fade when they are killed leaving behind the leftover parts, which we call loot. Most of the loot are worthless, but still sellable. Once in a while, a very valuable item is dropped. And something caught my eye in the fading corpse of the butterfly monster.

"Oh, what do you know. The Creamy dropped a card." The lady walked over to the corpse and pulled a small card from its body.

I gulped.

A monster card. When a monster is killed, they sometimes drop a card. No one knows where they come from or how they get there, but the benefits of the cards are undeniable. Cards are used to strengthen equipment. Depending on what monster the card dropped from, equipment slotted with a card have their performance enhanced drastically. And that's not all; if you picked up a card that you don't really want, you could sell it to others. People buy cards for a hefty amount. From what I remember, last time I poked around the market, Creamy cards sold for at least five million Zeny.

I bit my lip at the frustration. If only I was strong enough to kill that monster, that money could have gone to us. But a monster's drops goes to the killer. And any adventurer who broke that rule was sure to suffer consequences.

Seeing my disheartenment, the lady awkwardly scratched her head.

"Well, don't go around messing with Creamys anymore," she said as she ran off with a wave.

"That lady was a Hunter, wasn't she?" the girl asked, breaking the silence.

"I think so," I replied, swallowing my discouragement. "They usually have falcons with them."

The girl was my childhood friend and party member Pout. We lived relatively near each other when we were kids and were in the same class during our time at the Academy. Her wavy brown hair almost reached her hips, and I guess she would be someone you consider pretty. I'll admit, there are times when I think her large brown eyes are cute.

But she's a childhood friend, nothing more. I don't like her in that way.

Anyways, she became an Acolyte after graduating from the Academy. Acolyte is a class that specializes in healing and buffing their party members. They usually advance into the Priest class as they gained more experience. Though there are some oddball Acolytes who specialize in killing monsters with their maces rather than supporting, majority of them were of the supporting variety. Pout was of the supportive type.

After graduation, we immediately set out to the Prontera Fields, which was the closest area where monsters appeared form the Academy. Most of them are harmless, almost like you'd rather have them as a pet rather than kill.

There's a pink bubble-like monster called Poring and its smaller counterpart Little Poring.

An overly hairy rabbit called Lunatic.

A fat, green caterpillar that is spiky called Fabre.

And the Pupa and Creamy we encountered earlier.

All of these monsters, with the exception of Creamy, were weak enough that even Pout, who had no offensive ability whatsoever, could take them out in a few hits. If, for some reason, either of us were hurt while fighting these monsters, Pout could use her Heal and, well, heal us. Though her Heal was weak, it was enough to get rid of some light scratches and stuff.

Now, Pout was an Acolyte, and that was her class or Job. I was still a Novice, which is an unofficial Job title for those without one. Don't get me wrong, I still graduated from the Academy. For personal reasons, I decided to remain a Novice. This meant that I could not learn any skills aside from the most basic one, First Aid.

When I first told my decision to the Academy principal, the Academy principal was firmly against me graduating as a Novice. He said that it was needlessly dangerous and reckless for an adventurer to venture out without any skills whatsoever. However, after I continuously insisted that this is what I wanted to do, he relented. And when I graduated, he gifted me with a Novice Cutter, a type of dagger that was stronger than the ones usually used by the students.

It was my excitement of this new weapon that brought us here. I wanted to try out the Cutter right away, and Pout, as my party member, was dragged along. At first, it was just me who was killing the monsters. I guess Pout must have gotten bored because she started to go after monsters herself.

Oh, I should mention that Pout was gifted with a Novice Mace from her instructor upon graduating. It was a simple blunt weapon for hitting enemies.

We picked up any loot the monsters dropped. Most of the items were jellopies, which are small crystallizations created by some monsters. They didn't sell for much, but it was better than nothing. Other than those, we also picked up feathers, fluffs, carrots, and clovers. Pout and I both had a bag to put all these items.

It was then, while we were doing this, when I hit the emerging Creamy.

"Should we go back for today?" I asked looking at the setting sun. Pout looked as worn out as I felt. We have been running around since noon after all.

"Yeah, sure," she replied.


	3. Chapter 2

Pout and I headed back to Izlude.

For a month or so, the Royal Criatura Academy allows its graduates to reside in its dorms for free. This allows the rookie adventurers to build up funds without worrying about living expenses. Food, however, was not part of the package, so that was on the adventurers. After all, they couldn't support the graduates forever; that would ruin the point of the Academy.

Before we headed to where our dorms were, we stopped by the marketplace to sell out loot. Despite it almost being closing time, the plaza was relatively busy. This was usually the time adventurers returned to sell their loot from the day, so that was natural.

We wandered around the marketplace during our free time as students, so we were on friendly terms with most of the merchants. We were especially close with one in particular. She guided us through how to buy and sell things from merchants when we first arrived at Izlude. We were told to bring back something from one of the stores and would have been lost if it weren't for her assistance.

We found her in the same place as always, in her brown dress and white apron. Her familiar platinum blond hair made her stand out even in the busy plaza. She stood in front of the main shop building greeting the people walking by.

"Oh, you're back. I heard you two have graduated. Congratulations!" the lady merchant said.

""Thank you!"" Pout and I said, bowing at the same time.

"Seeing how you two look like you just came back from the fields, I'm guessing you are here to sell your items?" the lady merchant asked.

"Yes," Pout replied. "Our first day was okay."

"Compared to our days as students, anyways," I added.

"Haha, that's good. Keep up the good work," the lady merchant said.

"Thank you. Now, the loot we got…" I said reaching inside my bag.

"Oh, not to me," the lady merchant said. "I told you this before, but I'm just the shop helper. You have to go inside to the merchants to buy and sell items."

"Ah, I forgot."

"Right. We'll be heading inside then," Pout said.

"Yup. See you!"

When we entered the shop and the doors closed, I turned to Pout. "Wait, she isn't a merchant?"

"She told us this," Pout said frowning. "She's part of the Merchant guild, but she doesn't deal with buying or selling herself."

"I don't remember…"

Anyways, we walked to the closest counter. The merchant was very straight forward, and the process went very quickly.

Our loot that day consisted totaled out to be eighty-six Zeny. After accounting for the dinner at the cafeteria, which was twenty per person, we were left with a net profit of forty-six Zeny. It was not a large amount but definitely more than what we had made as students; I was more than satisfied with the results.

Pout suggested that instead of splitting the surplus between us two, we should keep it as the party's shared funds. I agreed with her—it would be easier to make bigger purchases this way.

With excitement of our first day as adventurers, we shared stories of our first day with the other new adventurers at the cafeteria and turned in for the night.


End file.
